UBS Exec Leaves Investment Bank for Wealth Management

(Bloomberg) -- UBS named Roger Naylor and Robert Karofsky co-heads of global equities at its investment bank, replacing Mike Stewart who is moving to wealth management.

Karofsky, 47, who is joining from AllianceBernstein Holding LP in December, and Naylor, currently head of global equity derivatives at UBS, will assume their new roles at the start of next year, according to staff memos from Juerg Zeltner and Andrea Orcel, the heads of wealth management and the investment bank, respectively.

Stewart will become head of the Investment Products and Services unit at the private bank, the memos show. A spokesman for Zurich-based UBS confirmed the memos’ contents.

Stewart, 45, took over the equities business in October 2011 after UBS recorded a $2.3 billion loss from unauthorized trading. He was hired from Bank of America Corp. earlier that year. UBS’s equity business posted $2.19 billion in sales in the first half of this year, making it the fifth-biggest equity trader by revenue among global investment banks, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence shows.

At the private bank, he will succeed William Kennedy, 43, who is leaving the firm. Investment Products and Services matches products to the recommendations of UBS’s chief investment officer, analyzing client portfolios and supporting customer advisers on topics such as wealth planning, and will expand its role to include sales management, pricing and its own profit and loss contribution. The wealth management division had 928 billion francs ($988 billion) in invested assets at the end of June.

Stewart’s “move represents our commitment to move talented and widely recognized executives across divisions to facilitate understanding and collaboration,” Zeltner and Orcel said in one of the memos.

DEUTSHE BANK 

Stewart will ensure a “seamless transition” to Naylor and Karofsky and will work closely with them in his new role “to maximize the opportunities for collaboration between the two divisions,” according to Orcel’s memo.

Naylor and Karofsky had worked together previously at Deutsche Bank AG. Naylor joined UBS from the Frankfurt-based company in September 2012. Karofsky, who was most recently the global head of equity trading at AllianceBernstein, began his career at Morgan Stanley and then joined Deutsche Bank in 2005 as head of North American equity before becoming co-head of global equities of Germany’s biggest bank.

Naylor will continue to be based in London in his new role, while Karofsky will be located in New York, Orcel’s memo said.

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